New Topics/Category Organisation Update 20:45 - Post 100

Dades

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

dont like the new topics thing at all. took me ages to try and find Abroad section as its not in the. why do you have to mess with whats working? oops just realised it there on its own under regional..... still dont like the new set up anyway....

I do find it a bit odd to find "Abroad" under the Regional tab, tbh.

padd b1975

Dades wrote: »

I agree with a lot of the feedback I've read this morning, but this is ridiculous.
Type r-a-d into the search box and click on the first link that drops down: Entertainment > Radio.

Unless you are a very slow typer, this should save you some time.

I'm a member since 2009, I know how to use the search function.

I deliberately side-stepped it in order to experience at first hand the new super-dooper-easy-peesy navigation system.

I finally got to my forum of choice (Radio) via Arts/media and all sub-forums, media and all sub-forums, news and media and finally Entertainment. There was also a couple of re-visits as I was afraid I may have missed it.

It's true what they say about always finding something lost in the last place you look:rolleyes:

titan18

January wrote: »

The only difference is we have to go through another layer to get to forums we don't have in our 'My Forums' list... I really don't know why everyone is moaning.

Why bother adding the extra layer? What sort of needless sh1t is that?

Star Lord

The only annoyance I'm finding so far, and it's slight, is if browsing the topics, say for example I'd expanded "Arts", if I then go to expand "Business and Finance" the menu disappears, as it sees that as moving the mouse off the target areas due to the menu shrinking. Don't even know if that's something that could be amended without having to have the drop-down menu a static size.

Dades

padd b1975 wrote: »

I'm a member since 2009, I know how to use the search function.

I deliberately side-stepped it in order to experience at first hand the new super-dooper-easy-peesy navigation system.

I finally got to my forum of choice (Radio) via Arts/media and all sub-forums, media and all sub-forums, news and media and finally Entertainment. There was also a couple of re-visits as I was afraid I may have missed it.

It's true what they say about always finding something lost in the last place you look:rolleyes:

The category re-org is meant to make it easier for new users to find a specific forum.

Leaving aside the slightly wonky dropdown for the moment, do you not think that new users looking for Radio might click expand the "Entertainment" tab first? As soon as they do - Radio is right there. That's the thinking. You're used to it in Arts, hence your 'difficulty' finding it. You side-stepped the search box you knew about, but didn't put yourself in a new user's shoes it seems.

This is why existing Boards users were all given a heads-up that a category shakeup was taking place, and a chance to give feedback.

padd b1975

Dades wrote: »

The category re-org is meant to make it easier for new users to find a specific forum.

Leaving aside the slightly wonky dropdown for the moment, do you not think that new users looking for Radio might click expand the "Entertainment" tab first? As soon as they do - Radio is right there. That's the thinking. You're used to it in Arts, hence your 'difficulty' finding it. You side-stepped the search box you knew about, but didn't put yourself in a new user's shoes it seems.

This is why existing Boards users were all given a heads-up that a category shakeup was taking place, and a chance to give feedback.

I would suspect a new user may start their search for the Radio forum under the Music heading.
Entertainment to me reads as "Celeb News" in the style of the Entertainment Tonight programme all the youngsters watch on the new fangled satellite TV.

Zymurgist

Has anyone from boards acknowledged the mess the television forum is in now?

It has been mentioned by numerous users on here but i haven't seen Dav or Boards.ie Chris say anything about it

Mr E

Yep, I've mentioned it another thread. I'm not happy about it either, but I'm confident that it will be dealt with.

blueser

Don't like it at all. It wasn't broke, so why fix it? Pretty please, with sugar on top, change it back.

hullaballoo

Getting to the Soccer Forum is a total pain. May not be a bad thing.

I tried it on my mobile there (full site) and it's actually impossible because once you scroll down the screen, the menu disappears altogether.

Aidric

Dades wrote: »

Leaving aside the slightly wonky dropdown for the moment

This would be my main gripe for now. A lot of white space and a lot more scrolling.

GLaDOS

Only getting round to using this on the desktop now. Will probably have more feedback as I'm browsing, but something that immediately strikes me is I think topics should be the first option on the left, as it's going to be the most used drop down.

cython

Not a fan of the new approach of shoving most of the forums under the Topics menu (just seems a bit imbalanced to throw probably 80-90% of boards activity in there), but from a look and feel issue, the Regional menu (as the emptiest top level category) just looks wrong on my screen due to the empty space on the right of the drop down being >1/3 the size of the actual menu content. None of the rest of the menus seem to have this issue, most likely because they have multiple columns, and their drop downs are thus wider than the "button"/heading that they drop from.

This change reminds me of when Windows Vista came out. Hide things away and expect users to use the search function for everything. Fine if you know what you're looking for, but what about those who don't know what forums are on the site?

paddy no 11

Can ye please go back to having the old drop downs, navigating between different forums/threads is a pain now

catallus

blueser wrote: »

Don't like it at all. It wasn't broke, so why fix it? Pretty please, with sugar on top, change it back.

+1, at least give the option of having the old drop-down menu on top anyway.

blueser

catallus wrote: »

+1, at least give the option of having the old drop-down menu on top anyway.

paddy no 11 wrote: »

Can ye please go back to having the old drop downs, navigating between different forums/threads is a pain now

Hear hear. Twice!

Dades

Karsini wrote: »

This change reminds me of when Windows Vista came out. Hide things away and expect users to use the search function for everything. Fine if you know what you're looking for, but what about those who don't know what forums are on the site?

I don't see the parallel.

The drop down is supposed to recatagorise everything in such a way as to make it easier to find forums without searching. Nothing has been hidden at all.

It's been alluded to several times that the purpose of this change is to get people used to this recatagorisation - the new look is temporary while we await a full redesign.

Lovely Bloke

but it's so hard to use that I'm not bothering, just going to my subbed forums for now, and not seeing the new categories.

That Television mess needs to be fixed before "a few weeks" time though, it's awful.

zeffabelli

Can someone point me in the generic television section, the dumping forum for all the tv shows that dont get their own forum?

zeffabelli

Dades wrote: »

The category re-org is meant to make it easier for new users to find a specific forum.

Leaving aside the slightly wonky dropdown for the moment, do you not think that new users looking for Radio might click expand the "Entertainment" tab first? As soon as they do - Radio is right there. That's the thinking. You're used to it in Arts, hence your 'difficulty' finding it. You side-stepped the search box you knew about, but didn't put yourself in a new user's shoes it seems.

This is why existing Boards users were all given a heads-up that a category shakeup was taking place, and a chance to give feedback.

I don't know why Arts an Entertainment are seperate categories in the first place. Same animal.

whatismyname

zeffabelli wrote: »

Can someone point me in the generic television section, the dumping forum for all the tv shows that dont get their own forum?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=227

Tokyo

zeffabelli wrote: »

Can someone point me in the generic television section, the dumping forum for all the tv shows that dont get their own forum?

Go to the television forum, and scroll down....


Mr E has raised the issue elsewhere, and will hopefully be resolved soon.

blueser

zeffabelli wrote: »

Can someone point me in the generic television section, the dumping forum for all the tv shows that dont get their own forum?

Topics->Entertainment->Television.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=227

zeffabelli

mike_ie wrote: »

Go to the television forum, and scroll down....

Thanks, it was the scrolling down part....so used to it just being there....

RDM_83 again

Not a big fan of it, I can see why its occurred in terms of giving sections of the site that make money for distilled/boards.ie prominence rather than user experience but sort of confused about why's regional given such prominence, the forums I look at are pretty quiet- is there a plan for sponsored threads in those forums or similar?

Opinion- unnecessary and more effort from a longer term user point of view but could be worse, I am extremely happy though that its still fairly easy to log out, please please never go down the path of burying it like some other services do.

crosstownk

I don't like this new set up at all. Way too many click throughs to get to where I want to be.

I appreciate that it's still WIP but so far it's not floating my boat. I was like a rabbit in headlights trying to find this Feedback forum............

zeffabelli

I think this might limit cross pollination and keep individuals corralled in their paricular communties.

At this stage, I click on my followed threads to find things because the top menus are too obfuscating, which means I limit myself to those particular forums, which means I do not get exposed to new things or other forums, because I simply don't know they are there.

Macavity.

I don't like it. Please change it back. Thank you.

Tenshot

After trying this for a day, my main feedback is:

- Topics should be upper-left corner; on a 1920 wide screen, it feels like a lot of horizontal mouse movement just to get over to the center position to choose a forum. Swap it with Talk to..

- More generally, I'd be inclined to group all the topbar headings to the left, rather than evenly spaced across the screen width - makes it much easier to browse

- On my all-in-one flat panel, the difference in background colour between the main topic menu and a submenu (e.g. Topics -> Entertainment and its suboptions) is very very slight - I can only distinguish it as a different shade if I look at the screen from a very oblique angle. Probably not a problem for most viewers, but worth mentioning.

Overall, I found the old layout more practical for the way I use boards; the new layout is definitely slowing me down. (I'm sure you're fed up of hearing that by now.)